I've been hibernating with a nasty cold for a few days—even had to miss my mixed chorus rehearsal for the first time ever—but today is Beast's birthday, and we went for a celebratory brunch at Number 33. He had The Beast, appropriately, a mighty collection of sausages, bacon, black pudding, beans, bubble and squeak, mushrooms, hash brown, fried bread, and eggs. I may have forgotten something. I'm still contemplating what to cook for supper—the original plan was a rib-sticking stew, but I think it might be pasta with chicken and mushrooms instead.

Slightly to my surprise, I have written about 10,000 words of not-fanfic. A bunch more to go.

Another event over, and that's the last one I'm supposed to be organising for... a while, anyway. Phew. Considering it rained ALL DAY, I did quite well for visitors for my Macmillan Coffee Morning. I'd done flapjacks (vegan, GF), spiced apple cake (GF), tiffin (GF) and Millionaire's Shortbread (all the bad things, with extra sugar), and Colin from up the road brought some dairy free rock cakes and Eccles cakes with frangipane, so we were well set. I did do some cheat cupcakes, a Betty Crocker mix made with Fanta instead of eggs and oil, with a plant-cream-cheese topping, but while they were okay, they weren't up to much. But we have polished them off! We do have cake still available for my mixed chorus next weekend, which is handy as I have done enough baking for a while!

I bit the bullet yesterday and took my hand-painted mugs off to Oxfam. A set of Avengers plus some random florals. I've brought them out for three or four years in a row and not sold any, so it's time to get them out of the house and hope they find their customers with a wider pull.

I did sell two or three suncatchers, a scarf, and an avocado plant, which is good! I really ought to cull my plants...

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Well. Chorus is now gathering momentum towards Convention at the end of the month. Our rehearsal this week was in the dance studio at the college, which was (I thought) a little bit disappointing as a venue. The mirrored wall was a bit inadequate, and we had to take off our shoes, which we'd not known about in advance. I was, fortunately, wearing nice warm turlough-made socks, but some people ended up barefoot, and the floor was not warm. Still, it was probably a useful experience, being able to look at ourselves to gauge whether we were doing enough. I am not afraid of looking at myself in the mirror, since I do it four or five times a week at the gym anyway, but a lot of people hated it.